Pages

Month: November 2014

The Miami Marlins recently agreed to a $325 million contract with Giancarlo Stanton, locking him up for most of his career (unless he opts out after the fifth year). Stanton is one of 20 players in MLB history with at least 150 homers in his first five seasons, per the Baseball-Reference.com Play Index, putting him in the company of all-time greats Willie Mays and Joe DiMaggio, as well as a couple less-renowned players of recent years, such as Dan Uggla and Mark Reynolds. Stanton has been near the middle of this illustrious pack so far in terms of overall value, closest to Orlando Cepeda and Mark McGwire.

Giancarlo Stanton recently agreed to a 13-year, $325M contract extension with the Miami Marlins, the largest contract (in terms of total value) in baseball history. Jon Heyman reported Tuesday that the contract is heavily backloaded, which is not a surprise — the Marlins’ last two big signings, free agents Jose Reyes and Mark Buehrle in the 2011-12 offseason, also had backloaded deals. The traditionally frugal Fish never paid the heavy part of either contract, trading Reyes and Buehrle after just one year — likely a reason Stanton reportedly negotiated a full no-trade clause.

The phrase “baseball is dying” has become an ironic meme on Baseball Twitter in response to the evergreen questioning of baseball’s health as a mainstream sport. And while baseball can’t match the NFL in terms of cultural clout, the above chart shows that the sport is hardly dying. Average attendance at MLB games has grown by nearly 20 percent since 1990, a higher growth rate than either the NFL or NBA.